(Right) Also with wife, Alyce Heman and sons-in-law, Steve Miller and Ron Schnur

Lessons Learned from and Love Shared with My Father

The Thanksgiving holiday has pilgrims. Today’s Thanks Giving Day has Norman Sussman.

As I look around this room, I am drinking in the love and the sight of all of you who came here to honor my father and to support Alyce, Sandy and Ron, and Steve and I. I see the look of love and sadness on your faces. And there is a look of wonder.

Wonder and anticipation about what I will say. Wonder and confusion about what this living and dying is about.

The last time I was in front of a microphone was just this past Sunday, toasting my daughter, Tracy, Steve’s daughter, and her new husband, Marcus. The day began with a dedication at this same cemetery for Steve’s good friend Cary. We drove out of this very parking lot, 2 lanes to the left on the central rotary, and on our way to Cary’s plot we passed the familiar Temple Beth-El marker. I saw the tree under which my mom was buried 16 years and 10 days ago. More wondering. How soon would I be back?

Sunday was a wedding and a beginning. Late Monday/early Tuesday was an ending.

Last night the family sat around and told stories and insights about who Norman Sussman was to us to share with the Rabbi and for the healing power of remembering him. I hope that Dad was listening. In his later years, when I imagine he reviewed his life and thought it might not have been “enough,” he needed to be reassured to boost his self-esteem. He reread several times the speeches given at his 80th birthday party.

So I’m going to share a few stories about the lessons learned and the love shared with my Dad. I trust he is listening from his new spiritual home. If Dad was here to speak in words I could understand, he’d be correcting me for sure on how the stories really went. For those of you who know the stories, I ask that you forgive my telling them as I remember them. For me it’s about the perception of how it’s registered in my mind.

I’m the kid most like Dad. Sandy and I share many of the same qualities. I happen to be the one who looks like Dad, walks like Dad. I share much of his nature and acquired so many of his qualities through his nurture.

Here is a partial check list of qualities and character I share with and learned from my Dad.

Compassion and Affection – CHECK! Dad and I once came upon a car accident just after it happened. I was a teen, I think. I hoped Dad would keep on walking and not embarrass me. Instead he surveyed the scene, talked to the man pinned behind the steering wheel of his van, and got a crow bar to help allow blood to flow to the man’s leg, probably saving it.

Optimistic – CHECK! I am off the charts, sometimes annoyingly positive… lucky me I found work where I teach optimism and get paid for it!

This is an article, written by Susan Schnur, who happens to be my sister's sister-in-law. It was published in Lilith magazine the Fall of 1998. It tells the story of how my father, Norman Sussman, and his wife, Alyce Heman, met, offered grief support to each other after the loss of their spouses one month apart, fell in love, and married.

It's an amazing love story that merged two families and created a special 13-year marriage.